


Say cheese!

by StrangeNoise



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas Cards, Christmas Sweaters, Domestic, Established Relationship, Exasperated fruitcake husbands, Fluff, Fruitcake, King Otis - Freeform, Kissing, M/M, Otis in a sweater, christmas theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22144567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeNoise/pseuds/StrangeNoise
Summary: Allen and Perkins want to take a cute picture of themselves and their turtle Otis for a Christmas card. It soon turns out that's easier planned than achieved...
Relationships: Captain Allen/Richard Perkins
Kudos: 4





	Say cheese!

„Where did you even find this thing?!”, Perkins commented, bemused, at the sight of the tiny, turtle-sized sweater Allen retrieved from an equally tiny box and showed off to his partner.

“Someone in my squad knows I’ve got Otis and sent me the link to some lady on Etsy, who makes those”, Allen explained with a smile. The sweater was truly adorable. It was a light brown color with spots of red, green and yellow. He had commissioned the sweater to resemble the fruitcake his boyfriend loved to make all throughout the year but mostly on Christmas. 

“You had a sweater custom-made for your turtle?”, Richard asked, looking baffled like he didn’t know that David would do almost anything for his pet of many years. 

“ _Our_ turtle”, Allen corrected immediately and smiled at his boyfriend’s huff. It was good-natured and he knew that Otis and Richard had long since grown fond of each other. With Otis’ difficult character that hadn’t been a given. But Richard had put in a lot of time and effort to get the turtle to like him and in the end, it had paid off. Sometimes Allen thought that Otis now preferred Perkins over him but he knew that that was mainly due to the number of snacks his boyfriend fed their turtle on the regular. If Otis could be swayed by anything, it was treats. 

Perkins was still shaking his head with a fond smile on his face but didn’t protest when Allen asked him to put on his Christmas sweater while he went to the living room to get Otis ready. Usually, Allen wasn’t one to send Christmas cards. For most of his life, he didn’t have anything worth showing off in them. But ever since he and Richard had started dating, his parents and siblings had started complaining anew and this year, David had finally managed to convince his partner to take pictures with him and Otis so they could send Christmas cards to their families. Perkins insisted that his parents probably wouldn’t care but still agreed to send them a card nonetheless. 

The two men had agreed on wearing some classy Christmas sweaters in their picture and to have Otis in the photo too. David had quickly begun joking about how they should get the turtle a sweater too but hadn’t actually considered it until his subordinate showed him that person online, who knitted and sold sweaters for turtles. Measuring Otis had been one of the more difficult tasks Allen had had to undertake these past years but eventually, he had succeeded and ordered the fruitcake-sweater for the turtle. 

It quickly proved that getting Otis into the thing was even more difficult than measuring him. After Allen had retrieved him from his terrarium and dried him off properly, it was a struggle trying to fit the turtle into his sweater. Otis retreated completely into his shell which was fine since the most part of the sweater was supposed to cover the shell either way. But Allen needed to at least get his front legs through the sweater’s “armholes” for it to stay on once Otis started to move and that was a tough thing to accomplish if the turtle refused to show his legs. After almost twenty minutes of struggle, however, David succeeded in getting the sweater on properly. By that time, Otis seemed thoroughly upset and even hissed at Allen once.

“See, he thinks it’s a stupid idea too”, Perkins commented as he joined them in the living room and immediately began feeding Otis some treats to placate him.

“He only has to stay in this for five minutes”, Allen sighed while he set up the camera and remote so they could take some proper pictures, “And look how adorable he looks! Like a tiny fruitcake!”

“He really does”, Richard eventually agreed with a smile, “He’s making me hungry. After this is over we should get Otis out of this sweater and then eat the rest of the fruitcake I made yesterday.”

“Sounds amazing”, David said, finishing the camera setup and getting into a comfortable position on the couch with Richard and Otis. 

Both men had expected this to take no longer than five to ten minutes at most. But it proved that taking a picture for a Christmas card was actually hard work. First, they took away the rest of Otis’s treats which cause the turtle to become angry again and try to escape from his spot in Perkins’ lap. By the time Otis had been placated with pets and more treats, his sweater had halfway fallen off of him and David had to spend another ten minutes getting it to fit properly again. Once all of that was done both men were already so exhausted they started questioning whether taking pictures for a Christmas card had been a good idea after all.

But they eventually agreed that they had already gotten too far to give up now and continued taking pictures. Now, the humans were the problem. Otis was lounging in Perkins’ lap, looking for all the world like he wasn’t even capable of any bad moods and posing perfectly each time. This left Perkins and Allen with the fact that every time they took a picture one of them was either talking, yawning, laughing, looking the other way or had their eyes closed entirely. By the time they _finally_ had managed to take a picture in which all three of them looked presentable, almost one and a half hours had passed and both men were thoroughly exhausted.

“We’re never doing that again”, Allen announced as he flopped down on the couch next to Perkins, handing him his plate with a large slice of fruitcake on it, “So much work for one dumb picture…” Next to him, Richard chuckled.

“But now we can say we’ve made a Christmas card together”, Perkins argued, “Isn’t that like some milestone for couples?” 

“It’s probably the last straw before they decide it isn’t worth it and get divorced”, Allen replied morosely. Perkins burst into laughter at that and soon David couldn’t hold back anymore and joined in on his partner’s good mood. 

As much of an ordeal as taking pictures for their Christmas card had been, David was more than happy with the result. The picture they had chosen in the end showed Richard and him smiling at each other fondly, Otis showing off his cute little sweater in their lap. It should be considered a Christmas miracle that they had managed to take such a soft and beautiful picture after all the trouble they had gone through before. Allen was sure that their picture would placate his family and maybe they could get out of sending Christmas cards entirely the next years.

Settling back onto the couch comfortably, David pressed a loving kiss to Richard’s cheek before turning his attention to the slice of fruitcake on his plate and set on devouring that. In front of them, on the coffee table, Otis – now sweater-free – crawled along and munched on some lettuce. It was a peaceful scene and if anyone asked Allen what he wished for the most, he would say for things to always be this calm and wonderful.


End file.
